


A Spoonful of Sugar

by dawnishere



Series: Heith Week 2k17 (July) [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 14:33:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11511375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dawnishere/pseuds/dawnishere
Summary: Keith may not know how to cheer up Hunk, but he's willing to try.Heith Week Day 1:Laughing/Crying





	A Spoonful of Sugar

**Author's Note:**

> This fic takes place in the same post-canon timeline as my other fic, [tap your heels together](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11417913) but you don't have to read it to understand this fic.

Day 1: **Laughing** /Crying

 

Hunk was in a mood. A moody mood. A cooking-weird-inedible-foods, not-laughing-at-Lance’s-frankly-terrible-jokes-that-he-usually-laughed-at, disappearing-at-odd-hours kind of mood. 

 

Keith was in a bind. Hunk was usually the one to cheer them all up, so he was unused to being in the position of cheer brigade (Lance’s words, not his). How do you even cheer someone up, especially someone who exuded sunshine and good will like they ate it for three square meals a day?

 

When Lance (and Pidge) first approached him to join their “mission,” Keith scoffed. What could he possibly do? He was hardly their most…jolly teammate and besides, how did they even know Hunk needed their interference? He advised them to leave Hunk alone, because he probably wanted some solitude. He wouldn’t blame the guy, seeing for himself just how overwhelming the other paladins could be.

 

Pidge smacked his torso with her Bayard for his “very incorrect understanding of Hunk’s needs” and he was quickly shown the light, as it were.

As he said, Keith was in a bind. 

 

Now, he watched as Hunk spooned the green food goo into his mouth with a decidedly distracted look on his face. His own bowl of food lay barely touched, but, atypically, Hunk made no mention of it or encouragement to finish his meal. Keith hated to admit it, but Lance was right: something _was_ off about Hunk.

The dining room felt strangely empty today. With Allura, Coran and Shiro on the bridge planning their next move with Kolivan, the silence stretching between brief attempts at small talk was pronounced. Lance and Pidge did their best to engage with Hunk, and it worked, marginally. He seemed to have caught on that the others suspected something about his mood, and quirked a smile when Lance told a truly horrendous joke, even for him.

 

Pidge tried to get Hunk to weigh in on her newest project. Keith had trouble following her but he didn’t miss the dullness in Hunk’s eyes as he nodded and offered brief suggestions. A silence followed after Pidge’s technobabble, and Keith cast a look at her end of the table to see both her and Lance shooting him pointed looks and equally-as-unsubtle pointed fingers in Hunk’s direction. He sighed; he was really doing this, huh? He took a deep breath and turned back to the yellow paladin, touching the table in front of the guy to get his attention.

 

“Hunk, I want to learn how you make that cake you made once.” Keith said pointblank. At Hunk’s bewildered expression, he added, “The one you made after the Weblum mission. It was…really good.” From the other side of the table, Lance goggled at him and Pidge looked hopeful. There, that should do it. Hunk loved cooking. And if Keith had to endure an afternoon in the kitchen to cheer up his teammate, well…it was a sacrifice he was willing to make. He was so busy congratulating himself on his efforts he almost missed Hunk’s acquiescence. 

 

“I think there was a request somewhere in that sentence,” Hunk said bemusedly. “Of course, I’d be happy to show you the recipe. Meet me in the kitchen in a few hours?” 

 

“I’ll be there,” Keith nodded, face as expressionless as he could keep it. He was…really doing this, wasn’t he?

* * *

This was worse than a bind. This was a goddamn pickle.

 

Before his meeting ( _date_ , Pidge needled out of nowhere) with Hunk, Keith had been determined not to go unarmed. However, his plan had been foiled by the surprisingly sparse Altean database (at least where food-related jokes were concerned). Hours of research told him two things: Alteans had a really weird sense of humor and their puns were somehow worse than Human ones. Keith salvaged what he could and translated them (with Pidge’s help) into more Earth-friendly phrases. 

 

Lance hovered above them suspiciously, distrustful of Keith’s supposed personality transplant. He conveniently forgot his own part in getting Keith involved in Operation: Make Hunk Smile (sue them, they weren’t poets). Keith scowled but for once in his life, opted not to rise to the bait. Instead, he made suggestions for Pidge’s translations until they both deemed they were perfectly terrible. “As every truly great pun should be,” Pidge grinned. Keith returned it with a more subdued, close-mouthed smile and she practically beamed.

 

“Lance, come take a look at this,” Keith called. Lance shuffled his feet sullenly but came over nonetheless. 

 

“I don’t take orders from you,” Lance muttered needlessly, taking the notepad out of Keith’s hand a little more roughly than strictly necessary. As his eyes roved the page, his mouth twitched. When he got to the bottom, he let out a soft “Heh,” which quickly turned into a full-blown laugh. “These are good,” he admitted, looking between his two teammates in surprise. 

 

“I know,” Keith said proudly. 

 

“I helped!” Pidge reminded everyone.

 

Keith ruffled her hair playfully, a little out of the ordinary but in a good way, he decided. “That’s right, I couldn’t have done it without you, Pidgey.” He almost laughed out loud at Pidge’s indignance at the new nickname. Sidestepping her attempt to trip him, he added: “Now all there’s left to do is transfer everything to my watch so I can reference the list in case I forget something.” One of the perks of living with a technological genius was getting all the random crap she made from complete junk. His hologram wrist-display (“it’s a watch, a holo-watch,” Pidge insisted) was one such invention. He didn’t wear it when they suited up, interfering as it did with the suit’s wrist display, but it was convenient when they were in the castle. 

 

“You’re not taking the pad?” Lance asked, holding out the datapad to him. 

 

“Nah,” Keith shrugged. “It’d be a little too obvious.”

 

“Eh, suit yourself,” the blue paladin grunted in concession. 

 

A small beep sounded behind them, and Pidge picked up his holo-watch from where she’d connected it to the castle’s interface. “It should have all transferred,” she announced, handing it off to Keith. He slipped it onto his wrist and buckled it in place. He looked at his teammates and solemnly offered a salute.

 

“Thanks for your help, team. It’s been a pleasure working with you, Pidge.” 

 

“Knock ‘em dead, Keith. Or, don’t, actually, that would be bad. We can’t find a new yellow paladin on such short notice.” Pidge joked. Lance returned his salute with a sincere thumb up.

 

Keith left his fellow paladins behind in Pidge’s workroom and set off down the hall. His slipper-clad feet barely made any noise as he strode through the corridor and the silence was beginning to wear on him a little. When he reached the door through which the kitchen lay, he paused. Was he early? A glance at his watch told him he was actually a few minutes late. Shit. 

 

“Sorry I’m— “He began as he shouldered the door open. Hunk was already at work, bowls of ingredients laid out on the countertop neatly. “…late,” he finished faintly. 

 

Hunk looked up from the bowl he was stirring _something_ in and smiled at him. “No worries, man, you’re more or less on time. I just couldn’t wait to get started.” He gestured plainly at the ingredients overtaking nearly every surface in the kitchen. 

 

“…I can see that,” Keith said blandly. Hunk looked unfazed. The taller guy motioned for him to come closer. 

 

“Here,” he said, handing him an apron and something that _almost_ resembled a measuring cup. “I have my own ingredients set out so I can guide you through the recipe, but I want you to measure out your ingredients to get a feel for the process.” Keith nodded, a little overwhelmed. What had he gotten himself into?

 

“Do you have any experience with baking?” Hunk asked idly, putting down his bowl and tightening his apron strings where they’d fallen loose. 

 

“I’ve baked frozen cinnamon rolls before,” Keith offered. He purposefully neglected to mention that it had been only once, and they’d burned to a blackened crisp. 

 

“That’s great!” Hunk exclaimed encouragingly. “So, you’ve got the ‘following directions’ part of baking down; now you just need the recipe.” Yeah, okay, Keith admitted to himself. He could follow a recipe. Piece of cake. 

 

Hunk spent the next few minutes explaining each ingredient to him. He pointed to a block of…something. “That’s basically the butter. It’s got a lower melting point than we’re used to back on Earth, but we’ll just have to make do.” Keith saw his chance and took it with both hands. When Hunk turned away, he flashed on his watch and quickly read the pun at the top of the list. 

 

“You know what they say.” He paused for half a beat too long, prompting Hunk to open his mouth to ask _what, exactly, do they say_ , but Keith quickly spoke over him. “When using butter, there’s little margarine for error.” 

 

“What?” Hunk wrinkled his nose, but a laugh escaped his mouth. “Who says that, you dork?” 

 

Keith flushed hotly. This wasn’t working out as planned. “You know, _they._ ” 

 

“That was a good one! I haven’t heard a pun that terrible in a while.” Or you know, things were looking up. It could have really gone either way, Keith conceded to himself, but he triumphed in the end. 

 

“What’s next?” Keith asked a little too eagerly. Hunk squinted at him, suspicious, but led him to the Altean wheat powder (“Or just flour, but it’s not quite the same.” Hunk admitted sheepishly) and sweetener.

“You need 3 of _these cups_ of the flour and 1 1/3 of _that cup_ of the sweetener.” The rest of the recipe was explained in a similar manner until Keith, who’d never successfully baked a thing in his life, felt moderately confident in the cake’s edibleness. 

 

As Hunk set the timer for 140 dobashes, Keith seized yet another opportunity. “Have you ever tried eating a clock?” He queried with a deadpan expression. 

 

Hunk looked expectant this time, taking off his oven mitts and leaning against the counter with a tiny, encouraging grin. “No, I can’t say that I have.” 

 

“Well, I have and I should tell you…it’s very _time-consuming_.” Keith smirked. That was one of the worse ones on the list.

 

Hunk laughed so loud it started him, and he nearly jumped when the taller paladin clapped him on the back. Keith hesitantly smiled back, the expression stretching his face in a way he was unused to. 

 

When Hunk’s laughter died down, he patted Keith on the back again, more gently. “Thanks, man, I really appreciate you doing this. All three of you, really.” 

 

“Wha-what?” Keith stumbled. “Doing what, exactly?” He tried to feign ignorance, causally posing by the island in the middle of the kitchen. 

 

“This,” Hunk gestured around the kitchen. “This whole, cheering-me-up thing. I’m really lucky to have friends like you all.” 

 

“Did it work?” 

 

“Huh?” 

 

Keith made a frustrated noise and clarified. “Are you…cheered up?”

 

“Oh,” Hunk mumbled. “I mean, I guess?”

 

“You guess?”

 

“Well…”

 

Keith edged closer to Hunk, reaching up to lay his hand on the other’s arm. “Hunk,” he murmured, his own gentleness surprisingly him. “You can talk to me if something’s bothering you.” 

 

A dam seemed to break in Hunk’s defenses and the whole damn thing came flooding out. “It’s just…I’ve been feeling really homesick lately? And I didn’t really want to involve anyone, what with Shiro’s disappearance. So I was sort of on my own and I couldn’t possibly ask you or Pidge on top of what you must have been going through with Shiro’s absence. Lance—he helped me through it one night but then I just pretended like I was feeling better so he wouldn’t feel obligated to—to comfort me and everything. And then Shiro came back and it just never seemed like a good time to bring it up to anyone? I thought I’d just get over it on my own but I guess I haven’t really been doing a—a good job of like, keeping my mood from affecting the rest of the team. God, I’m a terrible teammate, aren’t I. I really hope this doesn’t affect us forming Vol— “

 

“Hunk.” Keith finally interrupted. “It’s okay.” Hunk took a deep breath and nodded, a somewhat disbelieving expression on his face. “No, I’m serious. It’s understandable that you miss home. I’d be more surprised if you didn’t, in all honesty. I’m sorry you’ve been—dealing with this on your own. You could have come to any of us, but you know, I can get why you didn’t. It’s okay to rely on your teammates—on your friends,” he smiled faintly. Wasn’t that what Shiro said to him months ago? 

 

“Thanks,” Hunk said, voice small. “I’ll rely on you in the future.” 

 

“Please do,” Keith emphasized. “I would never offer something like this to Lance, so you’re really lucky,” he attempted to joke. 

 

“I don’t believe you,” Hunk smiled. “You’re inherently a good person and I know you’d do the same for any of us.”

 

“Hey, don’t go spreading that around, you’ll ruin my rep,” Keith grinned back. When did Hunk get so close? Were his eyes always so _brown_? He felt like he could stare into Hunk’s eyes forever and never name all the shades in them. Keith’s breath caught in his throat as Hunk reached for his face, his heart thudding an imprint against his chest. His friend’s warm thumb brushed something off his cheek, lingering for just long enough to notice. 

 

“Sorry,” Hunk chuckled, pulling his hand back. “You had some flour on your face.” He turned around to check the timer, clucking at the time remaining. When he moved further down the counter to clear some batter-covered bowls and put them in the dishwasher, Keith let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. His heart hadn’t stopped racing. 

 

Great job, Keith. He pulled himself out of one pickle just to put himself in another. 

 

 _And_ , he thought faintly as he watched Hunk hum cheerfully as he scraped leftover batter into a container. Hunk sensed his gaze and looked back at him, smiling warmly. _There was no punning himself out of this one._

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me about Heith on [tumblr](hunkul3s.tumblr.com)


End file.
